


Living Legends

by EpicCurves



Series: Bad Wolf [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Stiles, Canon-Typical Violence, Minor Allison Argent/Isaac Lahey/Scott McCall, Multi, Post-Season 3A (Teen Wolf), Pre-Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Spark Stiles, Temporal Rift, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:39:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EpicCurves/pseuds/EpicCurves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ms. Morrell still hasn’t been found by Monday, but life must resume as normally as it ever can. They decide not to raise the issue with the police, instead opting to keep the investigation on their own shoulders.</p>
<p>Scott and Stiles are busy debating possible supernatural sources for their problem as they enter school that morning. Stiles cuts off mid-sentence and stops walking as his gaze lands on Scott’s locker. Someone has scrawled the words BAD WOLF in yellow block letters across the door.</p>
<p>“Dude,” Scott hisses, freezing next to Stiles as he spots the graffiti, “what the hell?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction. I had a yearning for a Doctor Who/Teen Wolf crossover featuring Bad Wolf, and nothing I found was quite what I needed. Next thing I know, this happened. I make no claims at being a writer. I just needed to get the idea out of my brain so it wouldn't keep nagging at me. I am aware of how patently ridiculous this story's concept is. Oh well. But now that I've started, I have more ideas. I'll likely be turning this into a series.
> 
> Neither the Doctor nor Derek Hale appear in person in this story at all. We'll find out what happens to them in later stories. This one is all about Stiles and Rose Tyler/Bad Wolf.

Bad Wolf is furious.

The dimension cannon had finally worked. Rose Tyler had returned, Bad Wolf was whole again, she was finally reunited with her Doctor. And then the Metacrisis had happened.

She was stranded in Pete's World, trapped in the recesses of Rose Tyler's mind, and her Doctor had abandoned her again. Rose had the Metacrisis, but Bad Wolf had lost nearly everything. Nearly powerless in this confinement, cut off from her Doctor and the TARDIS. She howls her pain and fury, pounds against the walls of her prison, but no one can hear.

Bad Wolf scratches at the barriers in Rose's mind, trying to find a way out. She uses what she can of her power to preserve Rose, keep her intact until they can find a way back. She pours the rest of her essence into finding a way out, gradually chipping away at the walls until she can break free.

She notices absently when Rose and the Metacrisis discover her influence. She feels Rose's agony when the Metacrisis ages without her, but she pays it no mind. She has work to do. Everything will be better when they have her Doctor back again.

The Metacrisis withers and dies eventually, and Bad Wolf mourns along with Rose. The last part of the Doctor left in this wretched universe is gone. Time to return home.

Bad Wolf rejoices when Rose restarts her work on the dimension cannon. The walls holding her back are wearing thin, and she is almost free. When an accident in the lab attempts to claim the life of one of Rose's favorite researchers, Bad Wolf throws herself against the weakest point of the barrier and manages to punch through at last, just enough to save the man's life. She remembers in time not to make this one a Fixed Point, as she recalls Rose's distress when she'd discovered what they'd done to Jack Harkness.

Her power is still limited away from the TARDIS, but she is free again. She contains herself enough that she will not burn out Rose Tyler's mind this time.

She stretches out to see what's holding them here. Nothing seems to be stopping them from leaving this universe. The problem, instead, lies with the destination. Home is locked. None of her efforts are revealing a way through. She settles in to wait, restless and angry and homesick.

When the clever scientists of Pete's World form their own version of a Time Agency, she acquires a vortex manipulator and begins to search the timeline anew for a way through.

It takes centuries of searching before she finally finds something promising. A new Rift has opened somewhere, somewhen in the other universe. If she's lucky, with the help of the dimension cannon, she just might be able to rip a hole big enough to squeeze through.

The journey is difficult and painful and slow, but finally, _finally_ she makes it through. She sings her joy across the universe, scattering her words where she is needed. She can see, already, that finding her Doctor will be no easy task. It will take time and a lot of hard work. More pain, more loss, more fighting. But she will find him again. She’s waited this long. She’s home now, and almost returned to full strength with the TARDIS nearly close enough to touch.

Her Doctor is waiting. She will return to him. The Doctor, and Rose Tyler, in the TARDIS. As it should be.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles isn’t sure why he decides to visit the Hale house. Checking that Derek and Cora had really skipped town, maybe. He’s still pissed about that. They didn’t even say goodbye. He had to hear about it from Scott.

The door groans as he pushes it open. He calls a soft “hello?” into the darkness, and, as expected, receives no response. He glares at the staircase in trepidation, not sure if he’s brave enough to risk falling through. It sort of makes sense to him, now, why Derek would always jump the stairs. He wasn’t just showing off, after all. Those things are seriously structurally unsound.

A cursory search of the main rooms on the ground floor reveals nothing but charred, decaying walls, cracked windows, and piles of ash and debris where furniture and decor once rested. The kitchen is severely depressing, cracked bay windows looking out on a barren garden, wide countertops clearly designed to allow multiple chefs to operate simultaneously now crumbling into dust, once-state-of-the-art appliances now burnt beyond repair. He leaves the room hastily, before he has the chance to do anything rash. Like cry over the lost family times, or murder Kate all over again for what she did to Derek, to all the Hales.

He walks down the hall into what used to be the library. He stops in the doorway and surveys the scene, the burnt out husks of encyclopedic tomes scattered around the room. His heart breaks a little at the knowledge lost to flames. The library isn’t any less depressing than the kitchen, but it holds much more temptation within. Taking a hesitant step inside, he gingerly picks up a slightly-undamaged hardcover at random, trying not to let it disintegrate completely as dust and ash fall away. The cover is charred beyond recognition, but it looks like the book was thick enough that some of the center pages may have readable bits.

Gently, almost reverently, he lets the book fall open to a page near the middle. A singed illustration adorns one side, accompanied by a block of text on the facing page. Dark shaded areas of the image have been blended together by the flames, but much of the color is faded but still distinguishable. A figure in a once-bright red hood stands in the foreground, above a blood-stained dark heap on the ground, while a swirl of gold surrounds the darkened silhouette of what might be a woman in the background. Pinpricks of Alpha red and Beta gold (and even a lone pair of icy blue) eyes stand witness to the confrontation.

Most of the text is blackened and unreadable, but a few words stand out. Stiles frowns as he tries to piece together the story from sentence fragments. The content seems to be right out of some sci-fi’d version of a fairy tale. It’s some sort of werewolf origin myth and Little Red Riding Hood fusion story, with some time travel thrown in just for kicks. _Bad Wolf_ , the book claims, had ripped a hole in the universe to reach across the void, searching for a lost love.

Bad Wolf had apparently snagged Little Red and inadvertently fallen through a rift in space and time into hostile territory. In the heat of battle, Bad Wolf exploded, causing… werewolves, apparently. The how and the why, and seriously, _what the hell?_ has been lost to flames. The rest of the text is unreadable save for a few disconnected syllables. Stiles can’t discern any meaning from what remains.

Stiles’ mind drifts again to Derek, wonders if this is a story he was familiar with, something he grew up hearing. Is it supposed to be a serious origin story? Do werewolves just have really strange taste in bedtime stories? Are there werewolf science fiction writers? His hands clench around the book, itching to reach for his phone and just text Derek already. He scowls and pushes that thought out of his mind, gently closing the book and spinning to leave the room.

His gaze catches on the wall beside the door, and he stumbles back a step in confusion. There’s a crack in the wall. And really, that shouldn’t be out of place here, where the entire building is a charred mess falling apart at the seams. It’s not that the crack really looks out of place, either, it just feels wrong. Ominous in a way the haunting shell of a house never was. It feels like something is lurking on the other side.

His curiosity gets the better of him, and he absentmindedly tucks the book under his arm as he steps toward the wall. He can’t see much in the dim light of late afternoon and shadows cast by still-mostly-upright walls, but he thinks there might be a whisper from the other side. Super werewolf hearing would be useful right about now, he thinks.

Stiles extends a hand toward the crack, transfixed. Just before he touches it, however, his phone beeps with a text alert. He jerks his hand back, shaking himself as he fumbles for his phone. _morrell missing. meet @ deatons ASAP_ , a text from Scott proclaims. Stiles cringes at the horrid grammar and replies, _On my way. Do I need to bring my dad?_

He sends one last skeptical look back at the crack in the wall before trotting out to his car. Another text from Scott reaches him as he pulls the door shut behind him. _already here. hurry. deaton looks worried._ That makes Stiles’ eyes widen in shock, and he sprints the last few steps away from the house and to his Jeep. Deaton is never visibly worried. He hardly ever shows any emotion at all.

Stiles tosses the book on the floor of his Jeep and speeds into town, Hale house temporarily forgotten. His overactive imagination starts concocting a list of possible adversaries and worst-case scenarios. He makes the drive in record time and bursts into the vet’s clinic, where Deaton, Scott, Chris Argent, and the Sheriff stand waiting for him.

Stiles stops short when he sees Deaton. The man does, indeed, look genuinely worried. That expression on the man’s face is horribly unnerving. His dad tossing out a “Hey, son,” in greeting finally startles him out of his reverie.

“Yo, dad. What’s the sitch?” he asks, hoping to diffuse some of the tension in the room by just being his normal flaily teenage self.

“Marin Morrell went missing around 10:30 this morning. Dr. Deaton here called us in to help this afternoon, after his initial search turned up no results,” the Sheriff reports.

“She was at school this morning. I saw her walking to her office. And Allison would’ve said if she’d missed second period French,” Stiles says. “You’re sure she’s not just off doing her mysterious Emissary thing and forgot to tell you? Because I’ve gotta say, the two of you do seem to trend towards needlessly uninformative about your actions and intentions.” Stiles raises an accusatory eyebrow at Deaton and is rewarded with a condescending glower from the man. It’s not much, but at least it’s better than the worried frown he’d been sporting before. Stiles never thought he’d miss Deaton’s usual zen-master emotionless mask.

“I know my sister, Stiles. It is true, we don’t have the most conventional relationship, and in the past there have been instances when one of us would have to leave unexpectedly and we would not see each other for months, even years. But this time is different.” He pauses to take a breath and collect himself. “We were supposed to have lunch today, and when she didn’t show, I went to check on her. No response on her phone, no sign of her in her usual haunts. I felt it, when I went to her office and tried some tracking spells. It’s as if she simply, suddenly, ceased to exist. There was nothing to trace.”

“I’ll send the pack to track her scent,” Scott offers, to which Deaton gives a grateful nod.

“Allison and I will help,” Chris says. “We still have more tracking experience than you do.”

“I won’t file the missing persons report yet. Hopefully that’ll help hold off the Feds for a while.” Sheriff Stilinski casts an apologetic look at Scott, who makes a face.

“What should I be doing, then?” Stiles asks.

“You’ll stay with me,” Deaton says, “and we’ll work on some locator spells. You can switch to research when the pack gives their report on any scents they find.”

Everyone breaks off to their assigned tasks. Deaton walks Stiles through the spells he’s already tried, then gets him up to speed on the more advanced work. By midnight, it becomes clear that no one is making any progress. None of the spells have turned up anything useful. Scott reports that Morrell’s trail enters her office and never leaves, and they surmise that whatever happened must have been in there. What it could have been, though, no one has any clue.

Eventually, they need to call off the search for the night so everyone can get some rest. Stiles promises to work at Deaton’s through the weekend. He heads home, exhausted from the afternoon of spellcasting and restless from the potential new threat to the town.


	3. Chapter 3

On Sunday, Sheriff Stilinski relays that a missing person’s report has been filed on a man in town. James Wilson apparently disappeared partway through his afternoon shift at the small family-owned bookstore. The pack tracks him as best they can while avoiding drawing attention, and the results are disturbingly similar to Morrell’s case. James Wilson’s trail simply ends after he apparently walked into the back room to check for a book someone had on hold. No magical traces, no other scent trails, no signs of struggle. Like Ms. Morrell, he seems to have simply ceased to exist.

Ms. Morrell still hasn’t been found by Monday, but life must resume as normally as it ever can. They decide not to raise the issue with the police, instead opting to keep the investigation on their own shoulders. Deaton calls the school, reporting his sister out of town for a ‘family emergency’, so a substitute can be sent in to teach French.

Scott and Stiles are busy debating possible supernatural sources for their problem as they enter school that morning. Stiles cuts off mid-sentence and stops walking as his gaze lands on Scott’s locker. Someone has scrawled the words _BAD WOLF_ in yellow block letters across the door.

“Dude,” Scott hisses, freezing next to Stiles as he spots the graffiti, “what the hell?”

“I don’t know, man,” Stiles hisses back, stepping forward cautiously to survey the scene.

“Do you think--” Scott’s eyes widen in fear as he follows a step behind Stiles. “You think someone knows about the pack?”

Stiles frowns as he extends a hand to test the paint. It’s been there at least long enough to dry completely. “Maybe. But this might be… I think I’ve seen this before.” His mind drifts back to the book he found at the Hale house, and he once again fights off the urge to text Derek and ask him about it.

Scott casts a skeptical glance at him. “Seen it where? What do you mean?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” he reiterates. “It’s just these two words, like this. I don’t know if it means anything.” At Scott’s worried puppy-eyed expression, Stiles sighs. “Fine, I’ll do some research, see what I can find. And if it is about the pack, we’ll deal with it.”

That seems to placate Scott for the moment, as he nods and goes about switching books out in his locker. Stiles takes a breath to continue his earlier rant, but doesn’t get a chance to speak before Ethan approaches, looking angry, confused, and apprehensive. “Have you seen Danny today? I was sure I saw him arrive earlier this morning, but I haven’t been able to find him since. And he isn’t answering his phone.”

Stiles rolls his eyes in annoyance. “Good morning to you, too, Ethan. No, I haven’t been keeping tabs on your boyfriend.” Despite the indignity of the werewolf’s brusque approach, he pulls out his phone to see if he has any better luck.

“Sorry man, I haven’t seen him either,” Scott affirms with a frown. “He’s not just avoiding you for anything, is he?” Ethan shakes his head.

Stiles’ phone call rings through to voicemail, and he’s received no response from his text. “Nothing. Huh. I have first period with him, though. If he shows up, I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.”

Ethan doesn’t look very reassured, but he doesn’t get a chance to say any more as the bell rings, summoning them all to their classes. He nods jerkily at them and stalks off. Scott grabs Stiles’ arm before he can do the same. “What if he’s disappeared like Morrell and the bookstore guy?”

Stiles nods, face grim. “It’s a possibility. Organize a search later. There’s not much else we can do right now, and we don’t want to draw suspicion by missing classes, especially if this Bad Wolf thing is pack-related.”

Scott reluctantly nods his agreement, and they part ways to go to their classes. Danny doesn’t appear in class. Stiles calls his dad during the break between classes to see if the police have any info on the subject. There hasn’t been a report on Danny yet, but the Sheriff promises to let them know if one does come in.

The werewolves spend their lunch hour trying to track Danny’s scent. They know he definitely arrived that morning, but his trail ends in the boys’ locker room. Stiles tries his hand again at his arsenal of tracking spells, to no avail.

By the end of the day, it’s become clear that something strange is definitely going on in their town. The similarities in each missing person’s case are too blatant to ignore. What’s worrying to Stiles, though, is that there seems to be no method behind this. Morrell and Danny may have ties, however loosely, to the pack, but James Wilson is wholly unconnected. The locations where the disappearances have occurred seem completely random, too.

Three’s a pattern, as the Sheriff likes to say. Stiles just has no idea what the pattern here might be.


	4. Chapter 4

When Stiles arrives at Deaton’s for their weekly training session the next day, the first thing he sees is another BAD WOLF tagged across the back door, this time in spiky white lettering. It definitely looks like the work of a different artist than the one who’d tagged Scott’s locker. Why here, though, and why those particular words, he still has no clue. None of his internet searches so far have been helpful.

He doesn’t know what it means, and he doesn’t think there’s anything he can do about it right now, so he just pushes the door open and goes inside. Deaton’s fussing over a particularly vocal cat on the exam table and barely looks up in response when Stiles greets him.

“Today we’ll be working on shielding wards,” Deaton declares, handing him a dusty, leather-bound book with two bright post-it notes sticking out of the side. “Read the marked section. Supplies are set out for when you’re ready.” He waves a hand at the array of jars, papers, and odds and ends set up on Stiles’ usual workbench, quickly returning his focus to the cat yowling and fighting against his grip.

Stiles cracks the book open to the bookmarked pages with a frown. “This is in… what language even is this?” he complains. Deaton doesn’t look up, just waves a hand at the stool, where a Swedish-to-English dictionary sits waiting. Stiles rolls his eyes, picks up the dictionary, and settles down to work.

He’d started training with Deaton and Ms. Morrell a few days after the darach debacle, when it became obvious he would need to be better equipped for whatever disasters were headed their way. Deaton had picked Tuesday afternoons, and Ms. Morrell had Thursdays. They do joint sessions, sometimes also with Scott, on Saturdays. Deaton occasionally supplies untranslated versions of his texts, and as such, Stiles has picked up a little bit of an odd assortment of languages. He’s actually getting fairly decent at Latin and German, for reading if not speaking, but his French is horrendous.

Stiles has been studying for about an hour when Scott and Allison burst into the clinic. “Hey, private session here,” Stiles objects.

“My dad is missing,” Allison snaps, and both Stiles and Deaton drop their tasks to hear her report. “He met with a client today for a security consultation. He never made it home. He was supposed to train me after school, but he never showed and he didn’t answer his phone.”

“We tracked him from his last known location,” Scott adds. “He’d finished the consultation and stopped for coffee, apparently. Trail ends just outside the coffee shop, and his car was still in the parking lot.”

“Could he have just been abducted? He’s gotta have enemies somewhere, right?” Stiles reasons. He’s not optimistic about that being the case, but it has to be mentioned.

Allison shakes her head. “There were no signs of struggle. It’s just like the other missing people.”

“The trail was fresh enough this time that I smelled something. It was faint, I almost missed it, but it smelled like somewhere else. Forests and radically different air quality.” Scott squints and wrinkles his nose as he tries to describe it adequately.

Deaton sends Stiles to run the locator spells, in the hope that the recency of the disappearance might yield some different results. Stiles goes, taking the shielding spell book and dictionary with him so he can study from home after. Stiles has no luck once again, finding nothing with any spell he tries. It’s not just that he finds nothing useful, either, it’s that there’s absolutely nothing to find. No trail to follow, no trace of him anywhere within Stiles’ range.

Stiles narrows his list of possible causes for this situation. Don’t fairies live in some sort of alternate dimension world thingy? Are fairies a thing now? He’s tempted to add alien abduction to the list, but that’s just ridiculous. It’s gotta be supernatural somehow, right?

Allison isn’t happy with the results, but there’s really nothing else they can do with what they have. Until they find another clue, until they find something-- _anything_ \-- else, they really have no clue where to even start.

Scott and Isaac decide to stay over at Allison’s until her father returns. Stiles knows they have some sort of awkward threesome thing going on, but he really doesn’t want to hear the details. Not again. Not after Scott’s already way over-shared the details of his early trysts with Allison. He’s glad for them, though, that they have that kind of support. They all fit together, in their own odd ways, anchoring each other in turn, keeping each other human. They need that, all of them. Isaac and Scott, because, duh. Werewolves. And Allison… Stiles has never quite learned to trust her, not after the brainwashing and the torture and the shooting everyone full of arrows and the history of crazy in her family. He doesn’t trust her not to become just like her aunt and her grandfather. The whole Nemeton business just increased that risk one thousandfold, in his mind. But with Scott and Isaac to anchor her, maybe she’ll be okay. Maybe they can keep her sane.

Stiles tries to convince himself he’s not jealous of them for having that kind of connection with someone. Someones, whatever. He tries to ignore how alone he feels so much of the time. There’s too much else to worry about right now. Too much to learn and too many people to protect.

Stiles returns home and reopens the book Deaton assigned him. He discovers that this particular book isn’t conveniently just in simple modern Swedish. It’s a mix of old Old and Modern, and most of the spells are written in runic text. He uses the full force of his Google-fu to piece together as much as he can. Some of the wards are oddly uncharacteristic of what he’d expect from their origin, but they somehow mesh very well with Stiles’ own way of thinking. The translation is slow and perilously inexact, but Stiles is hoping his own force of will and the belief he pours into the spells’ workings will be able to compensate for his lack of knowledge. He copies his favorites into his on-the-go spellbook.

It’s another fitful night of research and worrying and minimal sleep that leaves Stiles no better rested than he ever is these days.


	5. Chapter 5

The words keep appearing, seemingly everywhere Stiles goes. BAD WOLF in chalk across the parking spot he pulls into one morning, a diminutive _bad wolf_ penciled onto his desk in English class, a crudely-sharpied phrase in one of the men’s room stalls, artistically rendered graffiti on the wall outside his favorite coffee shop, a suspiciously coincidental stack of wolf-based fairy tale books on one of the tables at the library.

Stiles finally catches the girl next to him in Calculus sketching a particularly vicious-looking wolf head above a Bad Wolf label. “Hey,” he asks, waiting until she looks up at him to tilt his head at the drawing, “why are you drawing that?”

She looks at him, confused, as though she’d never thought such a question could be asked. “I dunno, just felt like it, I guess? Thought it would look cool.”

It does look cool, too. The girl is a talented artist. “Well, sure, but why Bad Wolf? What is that? Does it mean something?”

“Not really. I just started doodling, and this is what I ended up with.” She turns her gaze back to the drawing, clearly finding it more interesting than him.

That rings some alarm bells in his head, reminding him of when Lydia would unthinkingly draw the Nemeton during the whole darach mess. “Have you drawn that anywhere else?”

“Nah, this is the first one.” Stiles can’t decide whether that’s comforting or disturbing. She doesn’t seem to be another banshee or similar creature he should be worried about, and Lydia hasn’t been drawing any Bad Wolf art either, so it doesn’t really fit with the whole death omen thing. But if this girl wasn’t drawing all the others, it means a good portion of the town is obsessed over the same two words for no apparent reason. This was really not promising.

The teacher arrives and starts the lesson before Stiles can think of anything else to ask, but he files the information away for later. The day is uneventful after that, until they’re cleaning up after cross country practice.

Stiles’ phone rings while he’s changing into clean clothes. “Yo, dad, what’s up?” he asks in greeting, struggling to change shirts without letting go of the phone.

“Another missing persons report came through today. Annie Meyers, owns a flower shop downtown. Her husband says she never came home last night, and she didn’t show up for work this morning.”

Stiles looks over at Scott to see if he heard, receiving a nod in response. “Pack meeting in 30? You can give us details and we’ll set up a search.” Stiles and the werewolves within hearing range rush to finish changing.

“Sounds fine, son. Meet at the animal clinic again. Deaton wants to stay informed on these cases.”

“Right. See you soon.” He hangs up and finishes switching out his gear while Scott pulls out his phone to call in the rest of their crew. Stiles still isn’t happy about including Ethan and Aiden in this, but he supposes Ethan at least does have a personal interest in this particular situation. Stiles doesn’t trust them, but he can be friendly for the sake of their tentative alliance. Friendly-ish. Not openly hostile, at least.

They all rush over, Stiles pulling in just behind Allison and parking next to his father’s patrol car. The herd of teenagers thunders into the clinic, abandoning all pretense of subtlety. Five people have disappeared now, and that is more than enough. This needs to end.

The Sheriff’s report is uncomfortably similar to the other cases. Annie Meyers vanished without a trace, right out of her own office. The police have no idea where to start, and the Feds are getting suspicious.

“There’s something else,” Deaton says, looking unnervingly uncertain for a moment. “I don’t know if it’s related, but I figure, better safe than sorry. This morning, I saw something… odd.”

“Odd how?” the Sheriff asks, raising an eyebrow at him expectantly.

“When I came in to work this morning, I thought, for a moment, I saw a crack in the wall of the storage closet,” Deaton explains. Stiles perks up, the phrase sparking a connection in his mind. “A client came in before I had a chance to investigate, and by the time I had a free moment to look, it was gone.”

“Show us,” Scott demands.

Deaton leads them to the storage room, points them to the wall where the crack had been. Nothing looks out of place right now, the wall perfectly smooth. “It was here. Didn’t look like anything special, except for the fact that it had never been there before, but it felt off somehow. I don’t know how to explain.”

“Now that you mention it,” the Sheriff says, “I think I saw something like that, too, down at the station the other day. It was busy, I didn’t have time to really look at it, but you’re right. There was a crack in the wall I’d never seen before and haven’t noticed since, and it didn’t feel right.”

“I can smell it,” Scott says, “a little bit. That same fresh air scent from before. Hard to tell with all the animal smells in here, but since this door stays mostly closed it’s still noticeable.”

“A crack in the wall…” Stiles mutters, frowning as the pieces of a theory start to come together. “I need to go check on something,” he announces, and turns to leave the room.

“Wait, where are you going?” Scott hurries after him, and the rest follow behind.

“The Hale house. I was there on Friday. I think I might’ve seen the same thing there, but I want to check again to see if it’s gone like yours are.”

“What were you doing at the Hale house?” Scott asks.

“Someone should go with you,” the Sheriff says.

Stiles chooses to ignore Scott’s question, responding instead to his Dad. “I’ll be fine, Dad. I can take care of myself.”

“He’s right, Stiles,” Deaton interjects. “While something out there is taking people, none of us should travel alone right now.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Fine. Isaac, let’s go.” He wants a werewolf’s super-sniffer to back up his hypothesis, but he doesn’t want to deal with Scott’s judgey-face and uncomfortable questions about his Hale house visit.

“But I--” Scott starts to object, before Stiles cuts him off.

“No, Scott. They need you on the florist’s search. Your nose is better for that sort of thing. Isaac can watch my back just fine.” And no way in hell does he trust Ethan and Aiden to do the same, but he doesn’t say as much out loud. He does have a modicum of self preservation, after all.

Scott makes a face, but agrees. The rest of the crew breaks into tracking and research parties, all heading off in tandem. They know by now there’s little hope of finding anything useful, but they still have to try. Any new scrap of information could be the key to solving this mystery. Cracks in walls, a faint scent of fresh forest air, and people vanishing completely out of existence. The picture is not complete yet, but the pieces are slowly coming together.

The drive to the Hale house is uncomfortably silent for most of the way. Stiles keeps catching Isaac watching him out of the corner of his eye. Finally, he can’t take it any more. “Dude, what?” he snaps.

Isaac frowns down at his hands clenched in his lap. He doesn’t speak for another minute, biting his lip indecisively. Stiles shifts uncomfortably, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel as he waits impatiently for Isaac to speak. Eventually, he does. “I miss him too, you know.”

Stiles blinks and furrows his brow, confused. “Who-- you mean Derek? You say it like he’s dead. He’s fine, just, you know, off finding himself or something. Family bonding time with his sister.”

“He wasn’t a particularly good Alpha, and he wasn’t really friends with any of us, but he was still kind of like an older brother to me for a while,” Isaac continues. “And you two had some sort of mutual-life-saving thing going on, so I’m just--”

“He didn’t even say goodbye,” Stiles says, petulant and annoyed, and it shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. “He obviously didn’t care that much, if he couldn’t even be bothered to do that. It’s fine, though. Whatever.”

Isaac holds his hands up in contrition. “I’m just _saying_. It’s weird, without him here. It’s okay to miss him.”

Stiles purses his lips and fixes his gaze back on the road, stewing in silence for a few minutes. When he pulls off the main road onto the rough path up to the house, he speaks again. “I just… I’d like to know for sure that he’s safe.”

“He’s strong. And he has Cora.”

“Yeah.” Stiles wishes he could trust that to be enough, wishes he could trust Cora, but he doesn’t. He can’t. And he hates it. He hates that he can’t be there to make sure someone is saving Derek’s life when he inevitably gets himself in over his head. Hates even more that he wants Derek here to do the same for him. It’s a weakness he’ll never confess to anyone, and one he hopes won’t actually end up killing him.

They pull up to the house and Stiles wastes no more time on his little self-pity party. He stumbles out of the Jeep and rushes straight to the library, Isaac at his back.

The crack in the wall is gone. The wood is still blackened and crumbling, but the unnerving crack he’d seen on Friday has definitely disappeared. “Huh. Well. That’s something, then.”

“Where was it, exactly?” Isaac asks, sniffing the room and looking around.

“Right here,” Stiles says, running his hand along the wall where the crack had been. “Smell anything?”

Isaac squints in concentration as his own hand reaches out to inspect the wall. “Yeah, a bit. It’s faint, since it’s been a few days, but things have been fairly undisturbed in here, so it’s still around. Fresh air. Trees, but not any kind from around here. Anything else is overpowered by the ash and dust of the house.”

Stiles starts pacing restlessly as he tries to piece everything together. “So these cracks in the wall are appearing and disappearing, seemingly at random all over town. And people are disappearing, presumably through these cracks. The question is, what exactly are they? Where did they come from, and why? Why now? What’s on the other side? Where do they disappear to? How can we get the people back? And how do we make it stop?”

“I hope you’re not expecting me to answer any of that, because I honestly have no clue.” Isaac smirks at him infuriatingly, and Stiles rolls his eyes in return.

“Funny. No. But hey, if you did have anything useful to contribute, now might be a good time.” Isaac just shrugs apologetically in reply, and Stiles sighs. After a few more moments of pacing and muttering to himself, Stiles gives up and starts walking back out to the car. “We should get back to the others, report our findings. See if they’ve found anything useful.”

They don’t talk at all on the drive back, Stiles trying to work his way through the problem and Isaac staring forlornly out the window at the passing scenery. They conference call the others when they get back, confirming the crack in the wall at the Hale house. Scott and Ethan report the same fresh-air scent at the florist’s shop, adding hints of rainfall and wildlife. Deaton again had no results from his attempts at tracking spells. The Sheriff found nothing useful and decides to re-focus his efforts on running interference with Agent McCall and his goons. Lydia’s made no progress on her part of the research front, but at least she also hasn’t had any death omen incidents so far. Allison and Aiden have nothing.

Isaac heads back to Allison’s, and Stiles spends most of the night at his computer, doing research and finding nothing useful.


	6. Chapter 6

The next schoolday passes without incident, much to everyone’s surprise. The whole situation is nagging at Stiles, though, and the Bad Wolf graffiti keeps popping up everywhere. He needs to get out and clear his head a bit. He decides a walk in the woods is warranted, and he suits up in his standard patrol gear when he gets home. After giving his watchdogs the slip, he wanders aimlessly, letting the terrain guide him where it will, allowing the steady rhythm of his footfalls to lull him into meditative thought. He doesn’t realize he’d been heading in any particular direction until he finds himself at the edge of a familiar grove of trees.

An unfamiliar blonde woman is walking around the Nemeton, frowning at the stump and fiddling with some sort of electronic device. She looks fairly close to Stiles’ age, maybe a few years older, and dressed casually in jeans, pink t-shirt, Converse sneakers, and a blue jacket.

“What are you doing here?” Stiles demands.

She looks up at him with a smile. “Oh, hello!” she greets in a friendly British accent.

“This is private property.” It’s not, technically, any more, and even if it was, it wouldn’t be _his_ property, but he can’t resist echoing that first fateful encounter with Derek in these same woods.

Her grin widens, and she pulls a thin leather wallet out of her jacket. “Rose Tyler, National Forestry Service,” she introduces herself, flipping open the ID. It looks real enough, but Stiles still isn’t particularly trustful of strangers, especially ones found lurking around the Nemeton.

He opens his mouth to say something, but stops when his gaze lands on the stump of the Nemeton. There’s a crack through the middle, one that feels eerily similar to the one he’d seen in the Hale house. “What did you do to it?” he accuses, fixing her with a glare that promises danger and the full force of his wrath.

Her smile falters and she takes a step back, hastily putting her ID back in her pocket. “I didn’t do anything. I came here for… um, a forest fire risk assessment--”

“Bullshit. The truth, now. Who are you? _What_ are you? And _what did you do?_ ” He stalks toward her, clenching his fists and preparing himself for a fight.

She holds up her hands, attempting to look as non-threatening as possible. “Look, mate, I told you, I didn’t do anything. I just got here, was just looking around a bit.”

“Yeah, right. People start going missing, these cracks start appearing and disappearing all over town, now you show up out of nowhere, here of all places, and you expect me to believe you’re not involved? Don’t patronize me.” He levels her with an icy glare, and his voice drops a register to a dangerous growl. “Tell me the truth.”

“I promise you, this wasn’t me. I’m, well, a traveler of sorts, I suppose. I just arrived here a few minutes ago and thought this thing looked out of place somehow…” She leans over to inspect the Nemeton, and Stiles panics, rushing over to stop her.

“No, don’t--!” He grabs her arm just as she touches the crack in the stump, and the universe shifts around them.


	7. Chapter 7

Stiles awakens with a pounding headache, groaning in pain as he works on convincing himself to open his eyes. When he finally manages it, he regrets it immediately and squeezes his eyes shut tightly again. The sun is high and painfully bright overhead, and it does absolutely no favors to his poor, throbbing brain. He takes a few deep breaths before trying again.

When he’s functional again, he sits up and takes stock of his surroundings. He’s definitely not in Beacon Hills any more. The trees around him are completely different, considerably greener, the ground lush with damp moss and rain-kissed flower patches. It’s early afternoon here, but distinctly cooler than back home. Not dangerously so, but enough to make him glad for his multiple layers of shirts. Rose is blinking awake beside him.

“What just happened to us?” He tries to put as much menace and strength into his voice as he can, but it just comes out shaky and disoriented.

Rose slowly sits up, looking around. “My best guess is, we just fell through a temporal Rift. One just formed in your forest, not too long ago. It’s a sort of weakness in space and time. It’s how I was able to get through.”

“A Rift in space and time… No, this can’t possibly…” Stiles’ eyes widen as the last few pieces fall into place in his mind. He takes a stab at something to finalize the picture. “I don’t suppose the words ‘Bad Wolf’ mean anything to you, do they?”

Rose looks at him, surprised. “Yes, actually. It’s me. I am the Bad Wolf.”

“You-- _you’re_ the Big Bad Wolf?” Stiles flails and scrambles backwards away from her, then glances down at himself and picks at his red hoodie. “Oh my god, and this makes _me_ Little Red Riding Hood.” He flops onto his back and stares woefully at the sky. “This is the _worst_. Ugh, seriously, how is this my _life?_ ”

Rose squints at him skeptically. “I’m not entirely sure what you mean. How did you know about Bad Wolf?”

“I found this book in the old Hale house…” he starts, trailing off as the implications sink in. He pulls himself back up to sitting, turning to face Rose. “We just fell through a Rift in space and time.”

“Yes, we did,” Rose confirms, looking mildly amused.

Stiles gapes for a few moments while he processes that. “Wow. Okay. So. Where are we now? _When_ are we? And how do we get back?”

“Well, if you really did find our story in a book, you probably know more about the when and where than I do. Still on Earth, I’m guessing, and in the past. As to getting back, you say people went missing, yeah? I suggest we find those missing people first.”

Right. Ms. Morell, Chris Argent, Danny Mahealani, and the two his dad had told him about. “Crap. Fine. If this is where they ended up, too. If they’re even still alive. Sure. We’ll get them home.” He stands, flailing to regain his balance as his head pounds in protest.

“Not much of an optimist, then, are you?” Rose asks, eyes twinkling in amusement as she pulls herself up to join him.

Stiles sighs and takes stock of his supplies, making sure his knife, gun, and bag of mountain ash made it through with him. “Not after the year I’ve had,” he replies, and Rose’s expression shifts to one of suspicion and contemplation as she watches him check the ammo in his gun. His Dad had insisted he carry it on all official werewolf business, for which he is immensely grateful right now. The Sheriff had started teaching Stiles gun safety years ago, while he was still just a deputy and as soon as Stiles was old enough to learn how to handle a gun responsibly, and they’ve been taking more frequent trips to the firing range since he’s been brought in on all of the werewolf business. It has been good bonding time for the two of them. “We won’t be needing wolfsbane rounds yet, will we? If I’m right, werewolves won’t be a problem until the end of our little adventure.”

“ _Werewolves?_ ” Rose’s eyes widen in a mixture of disbelief and fear.

“Oh, what, time travel you have no problem with, but you can’t handle werewolves?” He raises an incredulous eyebrow as he misinterprets her response.

“No, it’s not that. I’ve met werewolves before, actually, but we don’t… If that’s what we’re up against, there’s nothing we can do against them.”

Stiles just smirks at that. “Trust me. I don’t know what you’ve seen before, but I know werewolves. I’ve got this,” he says, waving the clip of wolfsbane rounds at her before tucking it back into his pocket.

Rose considers him for a moment before finally shrugging and pulling some sort of odd electronic wand out of her jacket. She waves it around and spins slowly as it whirrs and a light on the end pulses a bright blue, finally pausing when it starts to whine. “Right, then. This way.”

“What is that thing?” He nods toward the device, eyeing it warily.

“Sonic screwdriver,” she answers concisely, as if that’s all the explanation he needs.

“Screwdriver. Right. What’re we gonna do out here, build a cabinet? Why are you using a screwdriver to tell us where to go?” He continues to follow her anyway, because it’s not like he has any better ideas yet.

She just grins at him. “It’s a special sort of screwdriver. My-- a friend made it for me.”

Something in her tone clues Stiles in to a piece of her puzzle. “The same ‘friend’ you’re looking for now?”

Rose startles slightly and glances over at him, surprised. “How did you know I was looking for--” She pauses to gather her thoughts. “Right, that book you found. You’ll need to tell me what all it says.” She shakes her head to clear it. “Sort of him, yes, but also no, not exactly. It’s a very long story.”

“Then we’ll have to swap long stories while we walk,” he concludes, grinning at her.

She returns his grin and launches into her tale, about her mysterious Doctor and their adventures in time and space, how she became Bad Wolf. How she got stranded in another universe. How she fought her way back to him, how the metacrisis made a duplicate of him, how he left them both back in the other universe. How they were supposed to live their lives together, grow old together, travel the universe together, only to find that Bad Wolf wasn’t allowing her to age and die. How she’d outlived him and restarted her quest to return to her original universe, to find her Doctor again. How it had all ended up landing her here, exploiting the new rift in Beacon Hills to tear her way across the void.

Stiles blinks at her, working to absorb the downpour of information before spluttering and starting in on his own story. He tells her all about Scott getting bitten by a werewolf, how he’d then been launched into the world of the supernatural. He relays the abridged version of the Hale family drama, the undead uncle Peter and the psychotic side of the Argent family. He explains the hunter Code and its various fissions and failings. He tells her about the kanima, the Alpha pack, emissaries, banshees, the darach, and the Nemeton, briefly explains the sacrifices and the Beacon drawing all things supernatural to town. The new Argent Code, the switch in Alpha status, the Hales leaving. He tells her what he found in the book and concludes with the new rash of missing people around town.

Rose raises her eyebrows appreciatively when he finishes. "Wow, you've had quite a year."

"Less than a year, actually," he corrects with a wry smile. "I mean, it's not aliens-and-alternate-universes-and-immortality level adventure, but you've gotta start somewhere, right?"

"Sounds plenty adventurous to me," she assures him. The sun is beginning to set and they still haven’t found any of the missing people. “We’ll have to make camp soon,” Rose observes.

“Yeah. Hey, I don’t suppose you have a tent and a few sandwiches stashed in your pockets somewhere, do you?”

She casts an apologetic smile at him. “Sorry. We’ll just have to rough it for tonight.”

“Man, werewolf hunting skills sure would be handy right about now. We could catch ourselves a rabbit or something.” He spots a faint glow through the trees and reaches out to tap Rose on the arm. “See that?” he asks, lowering his voice.

“Yeah. Campfire?” she whispers back, turning off the sonic screwdriver but keeping it in her hand.

“Let’s find out.” He pulls out his gun, just in case, and creeps forward as quietly as possible.

They can hear voices as they get closer, a female and two males. Stiles sighs in relief as he recognizes one voice, tucking his gun away and deliberately walking louder to signal his approach. The conversation halts as the group hears them, and Stiles registers the shift of bodies arranging themselves defensively around the campfire and one melting into the treeline. “Stand down, Chris, we come in peace,” he calls with a smirk.

There’s a pause, and then a surprised “Stiles?”

“Put the gun away, dude, we’re here to rescue you.” Rose raises an eyebrow at him, but he just flashes her a grin and shrugs as he tucks his hands into his pockets.

“I’m not a damsel in distress, Stilinski,” Chris complains as he slips out of the shadows, tucking his own gun back in his jacket. “Who’s your friend?”

“Chris, this is Rose Tyler. Rose, the charmingly menacing Chris Argent,” he introduces, waving at each in turn as he steps toward the campfire. The two from his dad’s missing persons cases sit huddled together on the opposite side of the fire. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Ms. Morrell or Danny Mahealani anywhere, have you?”

“No, why? Should I have?” Chris hasn’t stopped glaring suspiciously at Rose since they shook hands. She doesn’t seem shaken, though, instead winking cheekily at him while she fiddles with a device on her wrist.

“Damn. They’re missing, too. We’ll need to find them before we head back. Hey,” he nods a greeting at the other two as he surveys the clearing. A relatively cozy shelter has been built from branches in one corner, and a few small game animals are slow-roasting over the fire. “Nice digs, man. You gotta teach me some of this survivalist stuff.”

Chris raises an eyebrow at him. “You’re welcome to join training sessions with Allison when we get back.”

“Sweet. Hey, you have enough of that stuff to share with two more?” he asks, gesturing at the roasts. “I don’t know about Rose, but I haven’t eaten since this morning, and we’ve been walking through the woods here for hours.”

“I suppose we can accommodate you,” Chris concedes grudgingly. “You’re sure we can get back, then?”

“Definitely,” Rose finally speaks up. “But we find the others first.”

“First thing tomorrow we start the search,” Stiles declares, pulling apart one of the cooked rabbits and handing half to Rose. He turns to address the others while he eats. “Annie Meyers, right? And James Wilson? Don’t worry, we’ll get you home safe.”

“You’re the Sheriff’s kid, right?” James asks. “The one with the crazy obsession with mythology books?”

“Yep, that’s me,” Stiles grins, recognizing the man from some of the times he’d stopped in at the bookstore for obscure texts. “Not looking quite so crazy now, am I?”

“Does that mean you know what’s happened to us?” Annie asks timidly.

“Ah. Right. Yes. Time travel.” He states, taking a large bite and reveling in their befuddled expressions when he doesn’t elaborate.

Rose rolls her eyes and takes over the storytelling. “We fell through a Rift in time and space. It seems we’ve found ourselves at some point in the past. We’re still not sure exactly when or where yet.”

“Well, we’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy, that’s for sure,” Stiles snarks around his mouthful of meat, prompting a disdainful glare from Chris.

“What part of this is making you not look crazy, again?” Chris asks.

Stiles snorts his amusement in response. “Fair enough. Fine,” he acquiesces, wiping grease off his fingers and setting aside his meal for the moment. He abandons his flailing, jocular façade and adopts his serious face. The crowd around him shifts as they see the stark change in his demeanor, sitting up like students in front of their most-feared teacher. “I don’t know if you two have noticed,” he starts, addressing Annie and James first, “but Beacon Hills isn’t just a cutesy name describing the terrain of our little town. It is a literal beacon for supernatural activity. A Hellmouth, if you will.”

“Supernatural, like, ghosts and stuff?” James asks, leaning forward in excitement.

“Mostly just werewolves and lizard-monsters and evil druids, so far, but there’s no telling what might be coming next.” James looks unnervingly excited at the prospect of werewolves, but Stiles presses on. “And now, also, apparently, we have a temporal Rift forming. I have no idea what all that entails yet, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. I presume each of you came here when you noticed a crack in a wall or something and were too curious not to touch it, correct?” He waits until each of them nods in response, Rose and Chris looking sheepish while James and, surprisingly, Annie both look intrigued. “We’ve fallen through that Rift, into the past, somewhere. We’re still working out the details of where and when we've landed. But two other people fell through, too, and we need to find them before we can go home.”

They talk a while longer, Stiles and Chris answering questions on everything supernatural and Rose answering Rift-related inquiries, until Chris declares it’s time for bed. Annie and James retreat to the shelter and fall asleep almost instantly while Rose, Chris, and Stiles tidy up and prep for the night.

“I’ll take first watch,” Stiles offers.

Chris frowns at him, concerned. “Are you sure? I can--”

“You need to rest, Chris.” Stiles pulls his spellbook out of one of his pockets and picks out a few wards to set up around their campsite just in case.

“So do you,” Rose states, raising an eyebrow at him. “It’s been a long day.”

Stiles shakes his head. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.” He doesn’t want to use too much of his Mountain Ash just yet, and most of his best spellcasting herbs are still at home, on the other side of the Rift. He takes a moment to pick his protection wards accordingly. He finds himself immensely grateful for Deaton’s lesson planning, as some of the shielding spells he’d copied over the other day are perfect for this situation.

Chris and Rose trade cautious glances. “Stiles…” Chris starts, and Stiles is not willing to deal with Chris Argent sounding genuinely concerned about him.

Stiles meets his gaze defiantly. “Seriously. Don’t.” He gets up to start his work. “I’ll wake you when I need you to take over.” _If I need you to take over_ , he means, but he doesn’t say it out loud. They’ll only give him those pitying, concerned looks, and he does not want to discuss his sleep issues with them.

Chris and Rose concede reluctantly and settle down to sleep. Stiles walks a circuit of the campsite, setting his wards. He finds a decent lookout point on the edge of the camp and spends the night keeping restless watch over them all. He dozes fitfully, not allowing himself to slip deep enough into sleep to let the nightmares take hold, trusting his wards to wake him if anything breaches the barrier he’s set up.

The moon is full, or very close to it, and much larger than he’s used to, shining bright against a dense starfield unpolluted by ambient city lights. Familiar constellations, though, so definitely northern hemisphere. The night is cold, his hoodie insufficient for insulating him against the chill, but he welcomes the discomfort. It helps him stay alert, gives him something to focus on to distract him from his thoughts.


	8. Chapter 8

Stiles gives up on all pretense of sleep as soon as the sun rises. The night was far shorter than he’s used to, and he deduces they must be at a higher latitude now, closer to summertime. He stokes the fire and puts their roasts on to heat. Chris is up within moments, stirring with the increase in noise and brightness, and Rose follows shortly after.

As soon as everyone is up and fed, they clear out the camp, leaving as little trace of their time here as possible. They head out, using Rose’s sonic screwdriver as their guide, to search for the others. They chat while they walk, talking about everything from their families and work lives to getting up to speed on the supernatural and swapping fantastical adventure stories.

Their first break of the day comes when Chris calls from the back of the group. “Stiles, come look at this.” Stiles twirls expressively to see what the fuss is. Chris has crouched down to inspect a flowering plant.

“Is that wolfsbane?” Stiles asks with a frown. It’s different from any type he’s seen before, the flowers a vibrant purple that pop against the earthy greens and browns of the forest floor.

“Yes. This particular variant went extinct over one thousand years ago,” he reports, carefully inspecting the flowers and leaves without touching the plant.

“Huh. Well, I guess that gives us a slightly better idea of when we are,” Stiles observes. “What does it do?”

“Legends list it as the most potent anti-werewolf poison, but also the most effective medicine when used properly. Rumor says it was able to cure any other form of wolfsbane poisoning, maybe even helping to speed the healing process with exactly the right administration,” Chris recites, with all the inflection of a textbook.

“Sweet. Take it with us. Maybe we can revive the species, or whatever,” Stiles suggests. Chris nods his agreement and uses one of his knives to dig up the whole plant, roots and all, and bundles it up carefully in a strip of cloth torn from one of his shirts.

Annie frowns at the two of them. “You’re not concerned about the super-poison part?” she asks Stiles.

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” Stiles replies. “Though the healing thing’ll be awesome to have around, too.” Rose and Annie look mildly disapproving at his attitude, but wisely refrain from commenting any further.

They haven’t walked too much longer when suddenly they find themselves surrounded by a horde of fierce-looking warriors, armed with spears, swords, and bows and arrows. “Whoa! Hey! Um. Crap,” Stiles exclaims, cursing his inability to articulate in his surprise. There are too many of them to take down with just his and Chris’s guns, especially not before they’d be able to kill him right back. He raises his hands and attempts to look harmless. “Hi there. We come in peace? Uh,” he splutters, then lowers his voice to a harsh stage whisper. “Chris, lower your gun,” he orders.

“Not until they lower their weapons first,” Chris growls.

“Seriously, Chris, please.” He glances over at the hunter, pleading and fearful, until the man grudgingly lowers his weapon but remains in a defensive posture. Stiles turns back to address the warriors. “We mean you no harm,” he says, trying to keep his tone even and soothing. “We’re looking for some friends of ours. They got lost, and we just want to find them so we can take them back home. I don’t suppose you know where they are? Maybe? Do you even understand a word I’m saying?”

To Stiles’ immense shock, one of the ladies, holding a sword uncomfortably close to Stiles’ throat, speaks up. “Your friends. A tall man and a dark-skinned woman?” Stiles nods, bewildered. “They’re being held prisoner in the village. They’ll be burned at the stake for their witchcraft this afternoon.”

“WHAT?! Witchcraft? _Burned at the stake?_ No! They’re innocent. Whatever they’ve done, it’s a mistake, a misunderstanding.” Stiles babbles, flailing and panicky. They can’t have come all this way just to lose them now.

“We know,” she responds.

“You-- you _know?_ You know they’re innocent?” he asks, and he can read the truth of it in her expression. “Well, then what the hell are they being executed for?”

“They appeared from nowhere,” she explains. “We couldn’t understand them when they tried to speak to us, but we took them in. We sheltered them, cared for them as best we could, until yesterday. Suddenly they were speaking our language. The village elders discovered this and decided it must be witchcraft. Are they mind readers, your friends?”

Stiles frowns in confusion as he tries to figure out what might have changed that they could suddenly speak another language. “Mind readers, no. Not even close. They’re just human, and lost. But yesterday… What could’ve…” He darts a glance at Rose as he realizes what was different about yesterday. “Rose? Care to explain? How are we all speaking the same language right now? Because I’m pretty sure they shouldn’t be able to understand English, and I’m pretty sure I don’t even know what their native language _is_ , much less how to speak it.”

A pleased expression settles on Rose’s face. “Oh, you are clever, aren’t you?” Stiles just raises an eyebrow, because duh, of course he’s clever. That doesn’t answer his question, though. “That would be my fault. Sorry. Bad Wolf is translating for us.”

“What? How? Is she… what, getting inside our heads? Changing our thoughts somehow?” Stiles accuses, uncomfortable with the idea. Rose won’t meet his eyes, and he decides he must’ve guessed right. “Yeah, I’m not so sure I’m okay with that. You’re gonna have to explain in depth later.” He turns back to the warrior woman. “So, there, you see? No witchcraft from our friends. Can you let them go now? We just want to get them and leave, we won’t be any trouble.”

She scowls distastefully, but Stiles doesn’t think her malice is directed at him. “We are not in charge of their sentencing, nor do we agree with it. The village elders are narrow-minded fools, and the villagers are too paranoid and afraid to speak against them.” There’s a violently bitter edge to her voice.

Stiles stills as he considers her, studying her and her posse. “Ah, I see. Dissent among the ranks, eh? And you haven’t spoken against them because…” he trails off, waiting for her to fill in the blanks.

She shifts uncomfortably and trades glances with the swordsman whose blade is at Rose's throat. “We’re outnumbered,” she admits reluctantly.

“By how much?” Stiles asks, cold and calculating, quickly formulating a plan.

“Stiles, I hope you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking…” Chris mutters in a sharp, warning tone.

“Five to one,” the woman reports.

Stiles assesses the crowd around them, taking stock of visible strengths and weaknesses, and runs the odds. He decides it’s worth the risk. “Right. How about this, then: you help us rescue our friends, and we’ll help you with your little regime change. Deal?”

“Stiles, the timeline--” Rose starts.

“Would you rather let Danny and Ms. Morrell die?” he snaps back at her. “Do you want to be responsible for their deaths? Because I don’t. That’s utterly unacceptable. Timeline be damned. I did not come all this way just to lose them now.”

“What exactly did you have in mind?” the woman asks, cautious but intrigued, slowly lowering her sword. A few others lower their weapons as she does, but most stay on the offensive, still suspicious.

Stiles smirks and cracks his knuckles. “Well, lucky for you, I’m actually pretty good at planning to beat the odds. When’s their little bonfire supposed to start?”

This time it’s the swordsman who replies. “Sunset.”

“Giving us plenty of time to prepare,” Stiles concludes with a grin. “Excellent. Can you take us somewhere so we can see what we’re up against?”

The woman gestures for the others to lower their weapons, and they obey, albeit reluctantly. “I’d like to know who you are, first, and how you came to be here,” she insists.

“Right, of course, sorry. I’m Stiles. This is Rose, Chris, Annie, and James,” he introduces, indicating each in turn. “And as to how we got here, well, it’s a long story.”

“I am Hjördís. We will take you to the edge of the village. You can explain as we go.” She motions them along with her, and the company moves out.

Stiles tells their tale as best he can, with contributions from Rose and Chris. When the swordsman, Hjördís’s second-in-command, Gunnarr, starts interrogating Chris on his fighting abilities, James falls into step beside Stiles. “Bronze Age,” he mutters.

Stiles has no idea what to make of that statement, completely out of context as it is from his previous conversation. “Excuse me?”

“We’re definitely in the Late Bronze Age, somewhere in Scandinavia,” James clarifies. “I’m a history major. My Master’s thesis focuses on the role of warfare in the development of early technology. The swords they’re carrying are typical of the era.”

“And this helps us… how?” Stiles hates to be mean, but there are just so many other things to worry about right now.

James shrugs. “Just found it interesting, is all.”

“Save the history lesson for when we get home,” Stiles insists. He actually is interested, and will definitely want to learn more about this later, but now is not the time. “We’ve got a rescue mission to plan.”

Hjördís silences them as they approach the village and motions for Stiles, Chris, and a handful of her own to sneak in closer while the bulk of their company stays back. Stiles takes in as much as he can of the scene. Danny and Ms. Morrell are shackled together at the center of the village under heavy guard. The warriors milling around look fierce, but they’re only human, for which Stiles is immensely grateful.

Stiles finishes his assessment of the village and its defenders, noting weak points and everything he can use as a strategic advantage given his planning skills and their limited-but-still-superior firepower. He glances at Chris and waits until the hunter acknowledges his own readiness, then motions to Hjördís that they’re ready to move out.

The plan they sketch out when they reconvene with the others is sound, and the warriors are duly impressed. Hjördís and Gunnarr relay their knowledge of the villagers most likely to cause trouble for them.

Stiles catches the eye of a boy just a few years younger than him while he’s explaining the wards he’ll be using, and he decides to test the kid with one of his simpler spells. The boy, Sindri, proves to have a spark of his own, and Stiles shows him how he can help with the warding.

The trap is set, the plan in place, everything ready to go. Stiles, Chris, and Gunnarr poise to move in for the first stage of the rescue. That, of course, is when everything goes to hell.


	9. Chapter 9

A scouting party comes upon them just before they can implement stage one. The scouts are easily disabled, but not before they’re able to get word back to the village about the attack. The onslaught begins before they’re even close to prepared.

Stiles rushes back to where Rose and the others are waiting. He quickly throws out a circle of mountain ash and sketches some quick-and-dirty shielding wards inside, infusing them with his spark. He guides Rose, Annie, James, and Sindri inside, making sure they don’t scuff his marks. “Do any of you know how to use a gun?” he asks, and Rose says yes, she does. He loads his gun with the wolfsbane clip and hands it to her, giving her the standard clip as backup. “If anything tries to attack you, use this. Don’t hesitate. Stay in the circle. Keep yourselves safe.”

“I can help out there,” Rose suggests. “I’ve picked up a few things over the years.”

Stiles shakes his head. “You’re needed more in here. You can defend them in case there’s trouble,” he insists, indicating the other three. They’re scared, he can tell, but they trust him. He squeezes Rose’s arm in assurance and she settles into a protective stance in front of the others.

He steps carefully out of the circle again, pulling out his knife and walking to stand beside Chris. Chris eyes him skeptically. “That knife all you’ve got?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Well, it’s not like I went out yesterday expecting to take on an army of bronze-age warriors, now, did I?” He sets his shoulders and lifts his chin defiantly. “It’ll be enough. Trust me.”

The trap they’d set up does help, disabling the entire first wave of attackers. It makes a dent, but not enough of one. Hjördís’s warriors fight ruthlessly, knowing exactly where to hit to cause the most damage. Chris fires his gun until he’s out of ammo, then whips out his knives to join the fray up close. Even Stiles takes down an impressive number of attackers. The past few months of fighting creatures who far outmatch his own strength and skills, plus the years of training for lacrosse and the self-defense training his Dad had insisted on, have given him a solid edge against these comparably primitive and strictly human warriors.

Hjördís’s warriors are mostly holding their own, but the sheer number of people attacking them is slowly wearing them down. Wave after wave of attackers floods into the forest, pushing them back viciously. Unless something drastic happens in their favor, they may not be able to last much longer.

A man with a wild, bloodthirsty glint in his eyes rushes at Stiles, sword in hand. Stiles barely has time to raise his knife to block the man’s blade, requiring his full weight and both hands to push him away. Enraged, the man roars and charges again, thrusting at Stiles’ midsection. Stiles bats at the man’s sword with one arm and lashes out with the other, his knife neatly slicing the man’s throat. The man gurgles as his eyes go dead, and Stiles kicks him away and to the ground.

Stiles stumbles, a wet warmth springing forth just below his ribcage. He looks down in confusion only to find a sword emerging from his gut, blood welling around it. A strangled groan escapes his lips and he falls to his knees.

“Stiles, _NO!_ ” someone screams. Multiple someones, maybe. Stiles can’t tell. He’s too busy bleeding to death.

A burst of golden light explodes out of Rose, and a rush of power washes over Stiles just as the world fades to black and his body gives out. The next thing he knows, he’s gasping in pain and fighting to keep himself partially upright. The sword falls to the ground with a soft thump and the hole in his gut closes up, leaving a knotted pink scar. He takes in a ragged breath as his body knits itself back together and Bad Wolf sings in his mind. _You aren’t leaving me yet, Little Red_ , Rose’s voice echoes across his own thoughts. _Use that spark of yours. Help me save them._

Stiles stands, Bad Wolf expanding around and through him, and releases power across the clearing with intent. He feels his own spark, a burst of bright red veined with black, blending with the warmth of Rose’s pink and yellow presence and the Bad Wolf’s cosmic golden swirl. It’s an odd dichotomy of being, the Bad Wolf pulling him in every direction, giving him a glimpse of everything the universe is, and was, and will be, while his own spirit tugs him into frantic focus, demanding protection for his ragtag group of lost souls.

A chorus of howls ripples across the battlefield, and Hjördís and her warriors, excluding the spark Sindri, all transform, fingertips extending into claws, teeth lengthening, hair sprouting around contorted faces. Hjördís herself takes the change a step further, shifting mid-leap into the full-wolf Alpha form. _Holy fuck, did I just make these people werewolves?_ Stiles gapes, echoing the question through Bad Wolf to where Rose still stands, swathed in her golden glow.

He feels her laugh in response. _I think you did_ , she answers. _I think we may have just created a new species._

_No way. That can’t be right._ He tries to convey to her the sheer impossibility of that scenario, but she just emanates amusement back at him.

_See for yourself._ Bad Wolf twists, revealing a thread of time. The full extent is far beyond Stiles’ comprehension, but sure enough, he can see how his spark combined with the power of Bad Wolf to become the genesis of the werewolf species. He follows the thread, fascinated, and witnesses the werewolves spreading slowly across the continent. He watches the rise and fall of Alphas, transfers of power and a select few coming into their own as True Alphas as they build new packs. He sees them seeking out those with a spark like his for wisdom and protection. He watches the Argent family become the first official werewolf hunters. Centuries of prejudice, misunderstandings, war, pack bonds, and secrets unfold before him.

His heart stutters as he spots the Hales, and he watches their family grow and shrink, a bloodline that can be traced back to the very group he’s just transformed. He almost rips the timeline apart when Kate Argent appears, but Bad Wolf reaches out to stop him, and this time Bad Wolf herself is the one who speaks. _Fixed point, Little Red. I’m so sorry._ The timeline slips away from his perception, and he returns to himself.

Stiles is a bit surprised to find that only mere seconds have passed since the transformation. The tide of the battle has turned, the villagers quickly falling or surrendering to the now-superior army of newly transformed werewolves. The new pack roars their victory, and a hush falls over the battlefield as the last few warriors drop their weapons.

Stiles watches the last man yield to the pack, then drops his gaze to stare blankly down at the dead man in front of him.

Rose steps out of the protective circle and approaches cautiously. “Stiles, are you alright?”

Stiles tugs at his hoodie, studying the tear in the fabric and the bloodstain around it. He pokes at the wound beneath, feeling the lump of scar tissue. When he finally finds his voice, it’s distant and rough. “Yeah, fine. Ruined my favorite hoodie.” He looks back down at the man lying dead before him, at the sword still wet with his own blood. He clenches his hand around his knife and shrugs away from the hand Rose tries to place on his shoulder. He shakes his head to clear it and looks back up toward the village. “We’ve still gotta get Danny and Ms. Morrell. Come on.”

Stiles just killed someone, he realizes. Slit a man’s throat and watched the life drain from his eyes. There’s blood splatter on his clothes, seeping into his shoes, staining his jeans, both from his attackers and his own wound. He’s pretty sure he died himself, too. Not for long, obviously, as he didn’t even have time to finish falling over, but he’s certain, when everything went dark, he’d died.

That’s not important right now, though. He can deal with the implications of all of that later. He still has people to save. He focuses on that and pushes all other thoughts out of his mind. Ignore the problem until it goes away, that’s his mantra. Maybe someday that strategy will work.

Securing the release of Danny and Ms. Morrell hardly takes any time at all. Word has spread throughout the village now of the transformation, the army of beasts, and the travelers from the future, the young mage and the hunter who fires thunder from his hands, the woman made of light. The pack goes to confront the village elders while Stiles and his crew collect Danny and Ms. Morrell. They’re fine, if a little underfed and stressed from the past few days.

Stiles lets Chris, Annie, and James take over explaining what’s happened to the others, and when he’s sure everything is settling down, he steps back and takes a breath.

“Rose, walk with me?” Stiles asks. She nods and follows him into the forest. He stays silent as they walk, and she casts curious glances his way. When he’s sure they’re out of range of prying werewolf ears, he finally speaks. “Um… what exactly did Bad Wolf do to me? I mean, I was dying. Skewered by a sword. Maybe even already dead. And now, well, I seem to be pretty much intact.”

“We healed you. There was…” she pauses for a moment, contemplating her response. “When I first became Bad Wolf, a friend of mine had died. We brought him back, until he couldn’t die any more. Ever. I never meant for that…” She takes a breath, a cacophony of emotions fighting for dominance across her face. “Well. I ended up cursed just like him, so I know now, what he’s been through. Anyway. Since then, I’ve learned to better control it. For you, it was just a healing of the immediate injuries. I think.”

Stiles leans against a tree and shakes his head. “I think it’s more. I feel something. I don’t know how to describe it.”

Rose fixes him with a concerned frown. “I guess you’ll find out. I’m fairly certain I stopped before I could make you immortal. But Bad Wolf has a mind of her own. I don’t know what she did to you. Probably nothing bad.”

“Right, well, that’s super reassuring.” Stiles runs a hand roughly through his hair. “And the werewolves. I-- we-- definitely just created a new species, right?”

“Right,” she confirms with a sharp nod. “Bad Wolf, combined with your spark, transformed these people into the first ever werewolves--”

“Wait, just, hold on. Let me see if I can get this straight,” Stiles says, holding up a hand. “I created these werewolves.” He pauses and looks pointedly at Rose, silently asking for confirmation.

She nods. “Yes, with Bad Wolf’s help.”

“Everything they are, I took from what I’ve learned about werewolves in my own time.”

“I presume so, yes.”

“These are the first werewolves.”

“Yes, we’ve already established that.”

“All the werewolves I know operate under the same rules I’ve just created for these ones.”

“A fair conclusion.”

“Therefore I know everything there is to know about werewolves.”

“So it would seem.”

“And werewolves are what they are because that’s what I told them to be.”

“Right.”

“And I learned everything I know about werewolves from other werewolves.”

“Where exactly are you going with this?”

“In circles, apparently. Werewolves told me what they are, and then I went back in time and created werewolves in their own image.”

“Time isn’t nearly as linear as people expect...”

“No, wait, I know this one. There was an Easter Egg on a DVD I found once. It was weird, like it was only one side of a conversation. There are whole forums dedicated to it online. I have a t-shirt from it, actually. ‘The angels have the phone box.’ Kinda cool, even if it doesn’t particularly make sense. Anyway. Not the point. The point is, it has the coolest explanation of how time works. ‘People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but...’ uh,” Stiles flails his hands expressively as he tries to remember the phrasing, “‘from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly… time-y wimey… stuff.’ Um. I guess it sounds better on the video…”

“It’s right, though, in the most general sense,” Rose interrupts with a laugh. Stiles can’t tell if her amusement is directed at the quote or at his tendency to ramble, but he doesn’t particularly care when he’s still trying to process what’s just happened.

“Ugh. My brain hurts. I am never going to get over how confusing this whole debacle has been,” Stiles complains, scrubbing his hands down his face. “I guess I’d better get the pack up to speed on their new werewolfitude, then,” he decides, pushing himself away from the tree he’d been leaning against and walking back to the village. When they get back, he joins Chris and Ms. Morrell, who are talking in hushed tones to the newly-made werewolves. Rose follows him, still chuckling intermittently.

Stiles spends the next couple hours teaching the pack about their new forms, arguing with Chris and Ms. Morrell when they try to correct him. Rose, Danny, and even Annie and James listen intently from the sidelines. Stiles makes sure Hjördís, as the new Alpha, knows what she’ll need to do to properly lead the pack, helps each of them discover their anchors, outlines some training and contingency plans for the full moon and future pack growth.

He warns them that it won’t be easy, they’ll face horrors they’ve never even dreamed of before. Hunters may not be a thing yet, but they will be. People are paranoid bastards, and the worst of them will kill what they don’t understand without even considering the human side. He gives his best superhero origin story speech, “with great power comes great responsibility” and all that jazz.

Stiles pulls aside Hjördís and one of the youngest wolves, Sveinn, to talk more in depth about Alphas. The boy demonstrated serious leadership potential during the battle, as well as an admirable respect for the sanctity of human life, and Stiles can tell he has the strength to become a True Alpha if he sets his mind to it. He tells Sveinn about willpower and determination in defining his role in a pack. He talks to both about respecting others’ choices and the importance of consent, both for turning new wolves and in general. He explains the role of an Emissary and the role of regular humans in the pack. Sveinn listens eagerly and takes each lesson to heart, promising he’ll do his best, and Stiles is inclined to believe him.

Stiles takes Sindri aside, too, going a bit more in-depth on his role as Emissary, protector and healer of the pack. He explains about the supernatural properties of Mountain Ash and the poisonous and healing properties of wolfsbane.

He debates internally for a moment, then pulls out his spellbook. “Can you read?” he asks.

“Um. No?” The boy just looks confused, as if he’s unfamiliar with the concept. And quite possibly that’s the case.

“Right, not really all that important, we can work around it. This is my spellbook. I guess, just ignore the written parts. The diagrams are what’ll be most useful to you anyway, and the workings all rely on your belief. You have a spark, Sindri, and if you believe it’ll work, then it will. Can you do that?” He waits until the boy nods eagerly, then launches into the lesson. He leaves the book with the boy at the end. He can just make a new one for himself.

Finally, all the lessons are over and he’s ready to return home. He gathers up his crew and says his goodbyes to the pack.

“We will remember you with honor, Little Red,” Hjördís tells Stiles, clasping his forearm and bowing her head, a warrior’s handshake.

“Little-- Rose! Is this your doing?” Stiles turns to cast an accusing glare at the woman. She tries to look apologetic, but the fit of giggles she’s fighting off ruin the effect.

“You and Bad Wolf have our eternal gratitude for all you have done,” the Alpha continues with a grin. “Have a safe journey home.”

“Thanks, and for helping us get our friends back. Take care of your pack.” He waves jauntily one last time and rejoins the others.

He takes one last moment to look back at the pack. The sun had set at some point during all the lessons. The full moon shines bright overhead, bathing the village in silver and starlight. The air is the freshest he’s ever breathed, not yet polluted by heavy agriculture or combustion engines. A cohesive pack stands before him, the largest he’s ever seen, and the first to ever exist. He envies them somewhat, the strength of their bonds and the adventures they have ahead of them, but he has his own pack, his own family, to return to.

“Are we ready?” Rose asks. Everyone nods. “Grab a hold, then.” She finalizes the settings on her wrist device, and each of them grabs on to some part of her. When she’s sure everyone is coming along for the ride, she presses a button and they blip out of existence together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this chapter moved fast. Sorry. Just sorta happened.


	10. Chapter 10

Stiles blinks and finds himself surrounded by familiar trees, standing next to the stump of the Nemeton. He laughs and pulls Rose into an enthusiastic hug. “We made it!” he declares. “You are awesome.”

“You’re sure?” Chris asks, pulling away and looking around cautiously. “You’re positive we’re back home and not just lost somewhere else in… uh. Time, I guess?”

“Killjoy,” Stiles grumbles, sticking out his tongue.

Rose giggles but pulls out her sonic screwdriver and runs a quick scan. “Yep, positive,” she says, “Right back where Stiles and I started.”

“Excellent, I’ll call my dad. Get you guys home.” He pulls out his phone, but pauses before he can hit send. “Um. What’s our cover story? You guys were declared missing. There are going to be some pretty awkward questions.”

Ms. Morrell and Chris won’t need to say anything to the police, as their absences were kept under pack jurisdiction, but Danny, James, and Annie will each need to come up with something. Annie decided a work-related emergency would be the most plausible for her. ‘Supplier issues’ and ‘bridezillas’ are apparently legitimate reasons to skip town for a day or two in the life of a florist. James, apparently, has some close but questionable college buddies out of town, who he can claim needed an emergency visit. They’ll vouch for him, he says, no questions asked. Stiles decides not to make him elaborate. Plausible deniability as the Sheriff’s son, or something, and James ominously agrees that’s probably the wisest choice. Danny decides to claim Teenage Angst, insisting that a few days’ worth of contemplation in solitude must be warranted for something like that. Stiles agrees to back him up.

With that settled, Stiles calls in his dad, Allison, and Deaton, and shoots texts off to Scott and Ethan. It’ll be a little while before the cavalry arrives to take them all home. They amble toward the main road to meet the cars.

“So… werewolves.” Danny looks surprisingly hesitant, not at all fitting his usual charismatic confidence.

“Yeah. Is that… are you okay?” Stiles asks.

Danny smirks halfheartedly. “It explains a lot, actually. Is that why Jackson was sent to London?”

“Yes, but there’s more to it than just that. It’s a long story. There’s actually a lot you’ll have to catch up on. You may want to have a little chat with your boyfriend.” Danny raises his eyebrows at that, while Stiles shrugs with an apologetic smile. “You’re invited to the next pack meeting, too. Which, really, needs to be soon. New Rift in spacetime and all that. I’ll send out the details once I talk to Scott.”

“Um…” Annie clears her throat, shuffling her feet. “Can… can I maybe come, too? I just, with what you did for us, and seeing how much is going on here, I think I want to help.”

Stiles’ eyebrows shoot up and he gapes for a moment in shock. “What, really? You’re sure?” James starts nodding first, surprisingly emphatic, and Annie joins him with a shaky smile. “Seriously, this isn’t going to be easy. There will be things trying to kill you.” Annie looks mildly terrified, but still sets her mouth in a grim line and nods decisively.

James fixes Stiles with a determined glare. “Seems to me, things will be trying to kill us, whether we know about them or not. Might as well be prepared.” Stiles has to concede that point to him. “And besides, I might have some resources you can use. The boss has me in touch with all sorts of rare book sellers. I’m sure I can direct my inquiries somewhere relevant, if necessary.”

“I know a lot about cultivating finicky plants,” Annie contributes. “If you need me to grow anything specific…”

“Dude! You are my two new favorite people,” Stiles announces with a grin. He gets their contact info and promises to let them know as soon as Scott sets a time.

They chat idly as they wait. Stiles convinces Chris to let Annie take the wolfsbane they’d collected and cultivate it in her own garden. “Don’t handle the plant without gloves. It’s poisonous to humans, too,” Chris cautions.

“Yes, thank you, I am familiar with the _Aconitum_ genus. Plant expert, you know,” Annie counters with a vicious grin, and Chris backs away with raised hands, attempting to look contrite.

Stiles laughs aloud. “Oh, Annie, you are a superhero in the making. You’ve got your mild-mannered alter ego all set up, and now you’re showing off that secretly deadly side that’ll take you to legendary status.” Annie giggles at him and punches him lightly in the arm.

Deaton arrives first, collecting Ms. Morrell and leaving promptly with hardly a word spoken to any of them.

The Sheriff arrives next, looking worried and angry and exasperated when he sees the state of Stiles’ clothes. “What the hell happened to you?” he asks.

Stiles shifts nervously, afraid to meet his father’s eyes. “Oh. That. Uh…” He really doesn’t want to have to explain his death and resurrection. It’ll just worry his Dad further. “Does it help that most of the blood isn’t mine?”

“Not particularly,” the Sheriff says, walking up and grabbing him by the shoulders to get a closer look. “Are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Stiles pulls away and gives his Dad a reassuring pat on the arm. “I’m fine, Dad. Really. Not even injured any more.”

The Sheriff still doesn’t look very reassured, but he lets it slide for now. He’ll take James and Annie with him when he goes, but he sticks around to make sure everyone else has a way home first. Stiles gets him up to speed both on cover stories and the actual events of the past few days. Ethan arrives in short order, thundering up on his motorcycle to collect Danny.

Ethan’s expression is ecstatic when he first pulls off his helmet, but his face falls as he catches Danny’s accusatory glare. “You have a lot of explaining to do, mister,” Danny growls.

“Um…” Ethan’s gaze shifts uneasily between Danny, Stiles, and the rest of the congregation. Stiles stifles a laugh at the Alpha’s expense, poorly disguising it behind a cough. Danny just rolls his eyes, takes the extra helmet from Ethan, and gets on the bike behind him. Ethan sends one last pleading look at Stiles before putting his own helmet back on and speeding off.

Allison speeds up last, flinging herself out of her car and launching herself at her dad in a frantic hug as soon as she’s parked. A few tears are shed between the two of them, and Chris does his best to soothe her in hushed tones until she can breathe normally again. She recovers her faculties enough to offer Stiles a ride home, but he declines. “I want to talk to Rose a bit before she runs off. I can walk home, it’s fine. Thanks, though.” She nods in agreement, and Chris bundles her into the car and takes over the driving for their trip home.

The Sheriff puts a hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “You’re sure you’ll be alright, son?”

“Yep. I’ll text when I get home,” Stiles assures him.

“I’ll probably be at the station late tonight closing up these cases. Get some rest, okay?”

“Sure thing, Dad. And no fast food tonight. I’ll bring you a salad myself, if I have to,” Stiles threatens.

The Sheriff rolls his eyes and pulls Stiles in for a hug. It’s a hug that says _I love you_ , and _I’m proud of you_ , and _I’m glad you’re home safe_. Stiles matches the hug with his full strength, squeezing with all his might, communicating back that he’s just so glad to be alive and home again. His father finally grunts with his need to breathe and pulls away, ruffling Stiles’ hair before gathering up James and Annie and driving away. They all wave to Stiles and Rose as they vanish from sight down the road.

“Rose, about the Rift,” Stiles starts. He didn’t want to bring this all up in front of everyone, make them worry even more, but the questions must be asked. “Will it still be sending people back in time?”

Thankfully, Rose shakes her head. “Not likely, or at least not to where we were. Bad Wolf was able to patch that particular leak when she did her thing with you on the other side.” Stiles heaves a sigh of relief. “You might get some odd things coming through, though, and I can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to send any of them back. And, um, the Rift is a bit of a magnet for, well. Aliens. Sorry.”

“Right, just what we need. In case being a beacon for the supernatural wasn’t enough, we are now also a beacon for the extraterrestrial.” Stiles throws his arms up in defeat and resigns himself to life on the strangest gaping Hellmouth in the known universe.

“Let me see your phone,” Rose demands, holding out a hand expectantly.

Stiles raises a suspicious eyebrow, but hands it over. Rose pulls out her sonic screwdriver, waving it over the phone. “What are you doing?”

She smiles slyly. “The Doctor taught me this trick. Just a bit of high-tech jiggery pokery, upgrading your service plan.”

He snorts. “Jiggery pokery, huh? Is that a technical term?”

Her smile turns bittersweet and wistful. “Oh yes. I came first in jiggery pokery. Still rubbish at hullabaloo, though.” She finishes her meddling and hands it back.

He pokes around to see if he can figure out what she did, but all he finds is a new name and number in his contact list. He chuckles. “Bad Wolf?”

She nods sagely, all seriousness belied by her playful smirk and the mischievous glint in her eyes. “You’ll get service anywhere now, and you’ll always be able to reach me, no matter where or when I am. Call me if you ever need me. And… if you ever happen to meet the Doctor…”

“I’ll let you know,” he assents, tucking his phone back in his pocket. “Hey, keep in touch, okay? I’ll want to know you’re doing alright.”

“Same here. You take care of those puppies of yours, and good luck winning back your own big bad wolf.” She flashes a devious grin at him and waggles her eyebrows suggestively.

Stiles gapes for a moment in shock. “I-- what-- no, I don’t-- he doesn’t-- why would you--” he splutters and flails uselessly, trying to think up a convincing denial. Her indulgent smirk and jauntily crossed arms just let him know his efforts are in vain. He finally sighs in defeat, running a hand through his hair. “Right. Thanks. I’m gonna need it.”

Rose just laughs and pulls him into a tight hug, which he returns with equal fervor. “Look at the two of us. Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. Living legends, the genuine article.” She straightens his red hoodie and pokes at his new scar through the hole as she lets him go. He yelps, prompting another laugh from her. “Bye, Little Red,” she says, and activates her vortex manipulator, vanishing with a grin, tongue caught between her teeth, before he has a chance to say another word.

“Bye, Bad Wolf,” he mutters, smiling and shaking his head at the empty space she was just occupying. He reaches back into his pocket to fiddle absentmindedly with his newly-upgraded phone as he walks back home.

He knows the Rift will be bringing all sorts of strangeness to town, in addition to all the supernatural nonsense from the Nemeton, but he can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him. The Bad Wolf is on his speed dial, and the Doctor is out there. There just might be some hope for them after all.


	11. Epilogue

Stiles gasps awake out of another nightmare. The leather and fur and claws and sharp canine fangs are nothing new, but watching the life drain from wild eyes at his own hand and the sword through his gut at the end are. He scratches absently at the scar below his ribcage and glares at the ceiling.

A glance at his alarm clock informs him it’s just past 3:00 AM. He doubts he’ll get to sleep again. There’s not much to research right now, no direction in which to focus his efforts, so it’s not even going to be worthwhile getting out of bed to start up his computer. He sighs in frustration and flops onto his side, his eyes landing on his cell phone.

Stiles snatches the phone from his bedside table and stares it down, simultaneously trying to talk himself into and out of his next move. When his patience finally wears out and he itches to just _do_ something, he finally works up the nerve to text Derek. He swipes the screen awake and navigates to Derek’s name in his contact list, opening up a text dialogue. His thumbs hover over the screen and he takes a deep breath while he contemplates what to say. _Do you remember a book from your family’s library with a weird werewolf sci fi Little Red Riding Hood time travel story?_ he sends.

The reply comes surprisingly quickly. _That was my favorite story growing up._

Stiles raises an eyebrow at the admission. He hadn’t pegged Derek for a sci fi fan. _Would you believe me if I told you it’s a true story, and that I’m Little Red?_

The next text takes longer to arrive. Stiles can imagine Derek’s incredulous glare, and the monosyllabic response is just so typical of the werewolf. _No._

Stiles’ mouth twitches up into a half smile. _I’m serious. Turns out waking the Nemeton made Beacon Hills more than just a beacon for the supernatural. We’ve got ourselves a genuine rift in spacetime._

_Damn it, Stiles. I leave, and look at the mess you get yourself into..._ he receives after a few more moments.

Stiles snorts. Look at the mess, indeed. He thinks for a minute before sending his next text. _Tell me the story._

_Didn’t you just live it? You probably know it better than I do._

_I know the facts. I want to hear the story._ He snuggles back into the covers, more relaxed than he’s felt in ages. He smiles softly as he waits for the next text.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you. Completely ridiculous. But it was quite fun, nonetheless.
> 
> Derek gets to go on an adventure next. It may be a while. He's harder for me to write. I don't know the inner workings of his mind as well as I do Stiles'.


End file.
